This award was established in 1950 as the W. Wilbur Hatfield Award and renamed the Distinguished Service Award in 1969 and recognizes a person or persons who have exhibited valuable professional service to the profession, scholarly or academic distinction, distinctive use of the language, and excellence in teaching.

Criteria for the Award

The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) is given to a person or persons, either volunteer or staff, who have exhibited valuable professional service (within the Council and outside) including scholarly or academic distinction at any level, distinguished use of language, and/or excellence in teaching. These criteria are good measures of acceptable candidates and help to assure that recipients have a wide range of "service" that they provide to the profession.

The NCTE Distinguished Service Award does not need to be awarded each year. This award should be bestowed only when the subcommittee decides that nominations warrant presentation of the award.